Matt Smith, Thomasin McKenzie and Anya Taylor-Joy in Last Night in Soho. image courtesy Focus Features.

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

Edgar Wright’s (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) stylish new supernatural thriller Last Night in Soho opened in theaters Friday, and it’s a chilling and haunting murder mystery set in two different eras.

In our time, Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie, Jojo Rabbit) is a mousy wannabe fashion designer from Cornwall who gains admission to the London College of Fashion. She also has The Sight – a gift that allows her to have premonitions and see her dead mother in the mirror. Eloise lives with her grandmother (who knows about her gift) where she makes her own clothes and enjoys ’60s music.

Eloise has long dreamed of going to London, as her mother did, but once there, she doesn’t fit in. Her classmates are more worldly, and her roommate is a selfish, condescending jerk. Eloise moves out of her dormitory to a bedsit owned by Ms. Collins (Diana Rigg, Game of Thrones).

Once installed in the third-floor bedroom, though, Eloise has an intense vision – or is it a dream? – that puts her in the body of Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy, The Queen’s Gambit, Emma), an aspiring singer trying to make her mark in 1960-something Soho. Through clever camera tricks, we see Eloise as Sandie’s reflection, observing her while close enough to touch her.

Sandie teams up with music agent Jack (Matt Smith, Doctor Who, The Crown) who promises her a shot at being a solo performance, but ends up pimping her out to the unending parade of men who frequent the club. Having her dreams crushed – and having to perform for strange men in and out of bed – wears Sandie down. Worse, the visions start driving Eloise insane.

While at first Eloise embraces the glamor and style of her ’60s doppelgänger, both in her fashion design and her personal life, Sandie’s life becomes a horror that starts tearing Eloise apart. Wright uses a faceless horde to represent the men who Sandie must bed, and that horde starts chasing Eloise around as a waking nightmare that she cannot shake. When Sandie’s life is touched by violence, it threatens Eloise’s life as well.

Everything about this movie is exquisitely rendered. Wright’s sets and art direction showcase Soho’s enchanting facade hiding a frightening, soul-destroying underbelly. The soundtrack sparkles, with tunes from Petula Clark, The Kinks, The Walker Brothers, Cilla Black and Dusty Springfield setting the mood perfectly. McKenzie and Taylor-Joy’s wardrobe is sumptuous; gorgeous costumes that most any woman would covet.

The acting is superb too. This is Rigg’s last role before her death in 2020, and she shines in a part that is more complex than it looks at first. Matt Smith, so genial as the Doctor, is a cold, calculating creep here, but one with enough charm to succeed at his odious occupation. McKenzie is effective as a country mouse who must fight demons from within and without, and Taylor-Joy is perfectly cast as a glamor girl with a dark side. And she really can sing.

There is a twist ending that you may or may not guess, and it does descend to melodrama at times, but overall the movie is a delight. Forget all your troubles, forget all your cares and go see Last Night in Soho.